Plans for The Midnight Devotee
by maevestrom
Summary: It's the middle of the night. She shouldn't be worried about her strategy. There's a lot she shouldn't apologize for that she feels the need to. For FE Femslash Week 2018 Day 4- Devotion


Sometimes she was just too damn perfect for her own good.

When you notice a flickering fire glazed by a lamp, you walk into her tactics tent. You see her bowed over a map, carrot-colored hair sticking to her side with adhesion, losing all the volume it had in its waking hours. Her eyes, already so narrow, flitted open and closed in jagged, graceless intervals- sometimes shooting open, sometimes flickering light back into her tan Plegian skin that dims out before it catches fire. Sometimes she sits up, arms on the desk where you could see her map and the oddly detailed pieces on it that symbolized the Shepherds in a vague battle plan. In others she falls apart, head cocked to the side like her neck snapped in the fall, tunic clinging to her skin far tighter than you are sure she intended, drenched in the sweat of a balmy midsummer night. Her coat seems to have been left in her room and it accents how much she looks like a barely operative mess, not the Clarice you know.

You watch her shake from the land of the living to graceless, unforgiving sleep, and you look outside the tent because, oh dear gods, is no one awake to take care of her, to let her sleep, except for you? All you can trust yourself to do is watch her, in case she falls out of her chair, which she might do at this rate. It would take so little for fate to rob the Shepherds of their best and brightest tacticians, and after all you've been through, you don't trust fate worth a damn.

But you trust yourself even less, so that's why you stand there.

You see her jolt awake again, slamming her desk with force that begs the world to believe her attentiveness. You yelp, hand at the hip of your mercenary outfit for a sword that you no longer carry (at her request, too, about two months after joining). She turns towards you, narrow eyes smiling with what energy she has left. You wave, but your skin is aflame and your grin bears teeth and violation.

None the wiser at this point, she says "Hello, Severa. I didn't see you."

You shrug. "I didn't expect to be here," you admit. You're used to not sleeping, but you're not used to having company. Though if anyone was awake in the midnight hours, of _course_ it would be her.

She yawns. "You're usually up around now." With a shaky smile that drains her energy, she turns to her map while you flush to a newer shade of red, knowing your insomnia is just something she seems to inherently factor in.

Nothing gets by Clarice, that's for damn sure.

She turns back to the map, devoting extra energy into both staying and seeming awake, She's not good at it. "I was working on a strategy," she explains, eyes downcast, no longer matching the smile on her wiry, pale lips. "Don't worry."

"I saw," you respond, with attitude and plainness. "Gods…" you want to respond further, but you know she's not fit to respond to your delightful bark and bite in the state that she's in, so a disapproving hand on your hip (and another kneading your forehead) is where you end it.

She gestures to the map, hair stuck to her arms. "I'm working out a plan," she explains. "So, what are…" she frowns, disapproving of herself. You sigh, already full to the brim with her disappointment in herself. (It doesn't take a lot to reach your emotional limit).

You look at the map on her desk. It's of the upcoming battle, on a set of massive bridges that perch precariously over irresolute pits. She has a few units towards the mountain plateaus nearest you before the bridges. If you read the top right of the map correctly, it says "Wyvern Plains".

She looks at you, and you place a hand on her bare shoulder. The small strings holding her tunic over her mixes with her parched, sweat-stained strands of hair. You lose yourself in the texture, and all you can feel is breathless concern. She holds your gaze, out of exhaustion or interest, so you say "I just don't want you to fall back asleep on me" a little too aggressively. She holds your gaze, and you know she knows you're leaving things out, but whatever, you could write memoirs with all the words you don't say.

"So it's…" she turns back to the map. "Big." You snort at her bluntness. "So… we'll probably have to attack it from a few angles. But… the thing is there's so little ground that they've…" she jerks her arms at it again, as if it should be obvious. "There's gonna be lots of… flying guys."

You snort. _"Flying guys."_

She chuckles. "Yeah… it's silly."

"Yeah, most sleep-deprived people are," you retort, arms crossed with a disapproving glare. "Just worry about it tomorrow, okay?"

She frowns deeply, as if she'll lose something significant for that. "We're approaching in a day or two," she responds, looking up at you again with pleading eyes. "I haven't made headway like I should have. I got careless."

You shake your head. Okay, maybe she was careless, but you were happy for every moment you two crossed paths and she wasn't nose-first in a book. Surprisingly, you eased up on your demands of her as a tactician when you first saw her interacting more with fellow Shepherds. Saw her talk to them, involve herself more than as a friendly superior, befriend them on their terms, make memories with them… and she has a nice smile. So what? She should get to smile more.

"You're smart," you tell her, but your body language reads like someone who wants to drag her to bed and then go on patrols. "You'll figure it out. Now seriously. Bed."

She throws her hands up. Immediately, you buck up, looking at her with the face you usually have at the start of a spar. "Look," she says, desperate eyes pleading to your unforgiving ones. "I just need to figure out what to do, then I'll get to bed." Voice cracking, she turns back to the map, taking steady breaths, hand on a piece, despite looking close to collapsing and waking a few more times, hating herself for each one.

When you first met her, you could tell who she was and who she was going to be- and now, though she tries, it barely differs. The Shepherds all knew each other by name. Many were married to exactly who you knew the parents of your friends would be. The camaraderie between them was the camaraderie of friends, and to be honest it threw you off, because in the world you were from they were all dead, could die at any moment, and you never lived in a world where you could trust yourself to believe that they would survive to attend your wedding. (Then again, they would have to be a hundred to witness that, you would guess.) So that's why you tried to push Clarice so hard to make sure you all made it to that day… but sometimes you wonder if she'll get there too, the way she looks at you and begs you to let her work herself to death, instead of being the same type of person the other Shepherds from her timeline are.

"Reese," you whisper without thinking, taking her hand, so very sorry for anything you did that made her like this.

"It's fine," she says- and you can tell that she means it (about your hand and her fate). "I should do this. Don't worry about me."

Like hell you can do that. Like hell you will be able to leave her alone to drown in her own faded, lightless passion. Clarice deserves a few moments to be less than what everyone expects her to be. She deserves to miss the standards you set up for her.

So you take one of the pieces, an archer (a tiny base doll with a stick and string bow tied into their hand), and place it on the bridge.

"I think," you start, "if everything is gonna start with flying units, we need archers to snipe them." Clarice looks at you, narrow muddy eyes too respectful as she breathes with all of her strength. "Then, I guess so no one on land gives them grief if they cross the bridge, a little…" you move another doll wielding a stick sword "That, and I guess any axe guys will back them up." You think for a second. "Oh and of course any sorcerers can join the archers, and can kinda do both." Represented only by robes, you move one of the dolls forward. "And of course go for a few of the flying types in case any of theirs get shy." You push a couple of pegasi figures in the air near the patch troupe you set up on the nearest bridge. "And... do that a few times I guess."

You watch Clarice grin, smile awed probably more than she will mean in the morning. She looks at the map, and at you. "This is… amazing, Sev."

You smirk, but you're beaming. "Just don't cry over it," you crack, because you doubt it will be as amazing in the light of day as it is here. You try not to think of the flaws in the hastily made plan, because your purpose wasn't to win the battle of Wyvern Valley. Your purpose was to get her to stop fighting it before you even get there, at least for tonight.

She, thankfully, stands up, though her joints shake and creak under even her manageable weight. "I'm serious," she tells you, holding herself up with your shoulder. "You're probably the second best at tactics in the whole army." She stops to think, as if to confirm the statement, but the thought dies as she blinks.

You smirk, but let her stay on your shoulder. "Then we're gonna be in trouble without you," you bite. She tries to smile back, but her body laxes on your shoulder, and she can't stop looking down with a frown, as if she can't say why you're wrong, but feels very deeply that you are.

"You okay?"

She nods. "I should probably get to bed."

You groan. "That's only what I wanted you to do in the first place, doofus." Still, as beleaguered as you act, you're relieved, and when you see her look up and start to walk with you, you can't hide your smile, a maternal one that she doesn't need from you. In truth, she is the mother of everyone. As you start the walk back, she follows, left hand on your shoulder, as though you're protecting her.

You don't say anything as you walk. You see her hold your shoulder when you look back, but her eyes are barely open. She is like a child, strangely vulnerable, unable to hide any emotion on her face but constantly changing before you can recognize a single one. You can only look for so long as you weave through the tents and try to find hers. You'll trip otherwise, and she's so comforting and watchful that she may drag you to sleep before her.

She has a way of bewitching you like that.

Suddenly, her hand drops from your shoulder. You gasp as it falls before you, but she slumps onto your shoulder, hooking it around your neck. You see her hand swing over your collarbone, noticing the mark on it. You only recognize it at all from stories Lucina told you that she witnessed before finding you again. To be honest, you didn't focus on it, even though Clarice hadn't left your mind after she became your mission.

Probably some of that legendary attention to detail you don't have.

"Sorry," she laughs, but throws her bare right hand around you. "I hope you don't mind. I'm just tired is all."

"Aren't we all," you respond, crooked smile.

"Except you," she responds.

"Eh," you breathe as you walk back, hoping to end the conversation. "I don't sleep."

"How come?"

You roll your eyes. "Gods, you're pushy when you're tired. I just don't, is all."

She hmms but gives an unconvinced "okay...". You want to argue, but decide it's not worth it. She can believe what she wants. Even when she's right, you'll never tell her.

You get a few steps further, clad in a second layer of pleasant chill from the breeze that tears through the tents, drenched with the impasse between the end of the day and the start of another. You see her hand at your neck and sigh as it bumps with your footsteps, the uncharacteristic mark facing and dodging your gaze with its six eyes. Six eyes you swear stalk you in every quiet moment you have, unless it's the mark on her hand, where you feel all six of them look away in shame under her control.

She notices you looking. She doesn't say anything, but she is heavier on your back, as if your presence is too much of a privilege to deserve. She clears her throat, and lets you go. You gasp as you hear her stumble a time or two, but she catches her footing. You face her, and she forces a smile. You're not quite so mirthful, standing defensively, eyes on fire.

"You scared me!" you hiss under your breath, though the whole camp could be woken up if you truly let yourself snap.

"I'm sorry," she chokes, her smile shaking like a leaf in the breeze. "But I think we're near my tent."

You are nowhere near her tent. Enough silent sleepless patrols have taught you where everyone's tent is, thankfully always arranged the same way no matter where you go. You look at her sternly as she adds "I can take it from here."

You shake your head, movements terse and immediate. "Don't lie," you respond, reaching for her left hand. She pulls it away slowly before you can grab it, but quick enough that she nearly falls into Kjelle's tent (and a decade of time spent with her says that both of them would absolutely not want that). She manages to stand steady afterward, but she neither moves nor holds your hand again. Her breath is not running across your neck near her hand like a distant kiss. It is nowhere near you, like perhaps it always should have been, but you now resent its absence.

"Just stop this," you insist, getting angrier as you reach for her other hand. She doesn't resist, but she doesn't meet your gaze. "We aren't near your tent, okay? I said I was gonna take you there and I will."

She follows you as you march with her hand in yours. "You didn't say that."

Damn, she's right. "Well I meant to," you insist like it matters.

"And I appreciate it," she breathes, "but you don't need to worry about me."

You groan. "Stop saying that, okay? First it was the strategy, then it was me walking you here. You just keep trying to get away from me, and, like, it's really starting to sound like you just don't want me here." You realize how raw your voice is as you finish, sorrow overtaking your anger, as if rejection is inevitable but the last thing you want from her.

 _Please don't turn me away._

You feel her shake her head behind you, wind slapping the leather on your back. "That's not what I meant," she insists, losing breath. She might fall asleep here and now. Or fall apart. She's done nothing but try and stop the crash since you saw her. You stop, and despite herself, she holds onto your shoulder with her left hand. "I'm sorry that you think that."

She's sorry about too much, you decide. If she doesn't need you, she should say something. You are not the most needed person in the army. You would hate for her to go- you get drunk off of the way you feel when she stays- but you would understand if she did not need you again. As you look behind you, you see her catch her breath, eyes closed, Mark of Grima on the hand grasping your shoulder the way a mountain climber grabs a branch.

 _Is that what this is all about?_

You ask yourself that like it (and your disgust) doesn't make perfect sense.

You would tell her now if it made sense to. You would tell her so much if you knew it would make the difference here and now, if she would remember your words in the morning. Maybe that's why you should, so if the way you feel is a giant mistake to share, you can brush it off as a bad memory when the sun rises. You look at her, and realize she always thinks, and always overthinks. There are so many things on her mind that you will never discover. All you know is that she helps so many, and can break your heart so easily, in spite of the Mark of Grima.

Maybe the battle plans are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to shutting her mind off.

You turn to face her, and she keeps her hand on you even as the mark leaves your chest and clings to your back. "It's okay," you whisper, smiling. "I really enjoy this."

She smiles, but looks at the ground. She's brighter than her hair. She still doesn't believe you, and you're frustrated, because you want her to trust you. To know you. To believe you in a world where so many look for the hidden messages in your words. "I was worried about you," you continue, catching yourself from showing off your specialty attitude. "You do enough worrying about us. Let me worry about you."

She finally looks up at you. "If you think you're okay with that," she whispers.

You hold her gaze. "You devote yourself to us all the time," you posit again. "Let me devote a little time to you, okay?"

She nods, slipping her hands both over your shoulders. You're face to face, both uncomfortably and comfortably so. She's a good few inches taller than you, but she's close to broken at this moment. She's pushing her body to limits in times of peace you only know while in battle, so that everyone believes that she is enough, while the one who knows that she is far beyond her expectations carries her back to camp so she can sleep, at ease, loving herself almost as much as you do.

"Sorry I'm such a mess right now."

You can only shake your head. She's such a magnificent idiot.

You stand there for a minute. You will never admit that you like it. She is a veneer of emotion breaking out of the smallest cracks in her smile as she is too derelict to hold herself up. She appears so much older than you just by the way she carries herself, even now, when she has nothing to hold herself up with. As her eyes plead with you to accept her despite her faults, you realize that she is your age, that she is like you. She is like you, and that is okay, and for once in your life you are forced to admit that it is okay to be you if she is.

"Let's get you back," you say before you stay there forever and keep her from sleeping.

She nods with a short laugh. "That may be the best idea."

You turn in front of her, and though she grabs you a little harder than you expect, a little stronger than before, she follows you, breath relaxing, a burden off of her chest. The less dead on her feet she feels, the more you feel that you have taken that burden from her. She keeps her grip firm on yours, but traces the edge of your collarbone- as if to restore something to you. You shudder beneath her touch, but still walk- and if she felt something in your skin, she doesn't tell you.

You reach her tent, and though you intend to stay just long enough to watch her hit her cot belly-first, you linger on the chair nearest it, her coat resting on its back. She pulls the covers over her body as she lies down, and looks at you. "Thank you," she breathes into her pillow. "You're a really nice person."

You shrug it off with a smirk as if your heart doesn't leap and blaze at her comment. "You must be tired to think that," you reply with a little venom. "It was something anyone could do."

"So why didn't they?"

You can't think of an answer to that, staring straight ahead, trying not to believe you are a nice person, but flummoxed into reckless emotion by her comment. She just chuckles quietly, hair finally splayed as her pillow musses it, orange strands twisted every which way. "It's okay," she says, breathless. "You're someone…"

You hear her words die with her thoughts, and only now that she's stopped letting her overthinking prop her up like a drooping marionette, do you want to know what the hell she's thinking.

"Someone?" you respond, fearful of the answer.

"Tomorrow, Sevvy," she whispers, breath leaving her voice to focus on keeping steady as you hear her finally fall asleep. You replay her pet name in your head, flushing as furiously as you feel, but you manage to keep your heat to your body. You look at her, still in disbelief that she finds you incredible for so many reasons, but you decide to let her sleep.

 _Tomorrow?_ Maybe you meant to say the words at no one, but instead you think them to yourself, as if preparing for them. As if you need to check yourself, not her.

 _Tomorrow it is, then._

You'll save the butterflies in your stomach for the waking hours when they matter.

Her hand drops off of the cot for a brief moment, the six eyes of Grima staring you in your two. You take it, limp in yours. You linger for a few moments, stroking in between all six as you feel them look away from you, as if they refuse to be a part of this amazing woman.

You set in on the cot and smile sweetly, too sweetly for Severa.

"Sleep well, Reese. Okay?"

You're a ghost in the night, walking between the tents, as questionably significant as you should be. You're used to late night patrols that no one thinks about, that aren't planned like Clarice's strategies. You can't sleep well, and you aren't exactly standout as a fighter. Maybe this is how you matter. Maybe these are the first footsteps of that ghost.

They're the feet that led you this far.

You sit against a tree, knees to your chin. You look on the empty plains facing away from the camp. Her hand that isn't present anymore is felt phantom on your shoulder, comforting, familiar in its unfamiliarity, telling you that you matter.

You're not sure if believe it, but it gives you hope and keeps your eyes open.

No matter what changes tomorrow, that'll do for tonight.


End file.
